High hopes for Jones' second season as LSU basketball coach

BATON ROUGE— It’s only Johnny Jones’ second year as head coach of the LSU men’s basketball team, but a lot has changed in
his short time in charge of the Tigers.

The DeRidder native has taken LSU from a mediocre Southeastern Conference team to one many analysts expect to make the field
of 68 come March.

In his first year at the helm, the
Tigers performed fairly well for an undersized team lacking in depth and
experience. But
Jones only lost one player from last season— senior guard Charles
Carmouche— and three starters are back from the team that
went 19-12.

One of those returning starters is Johnny O’Bryant III, a junior forward who flirted with the NBA Draft last season before
deciding another year in Baton Rouge was his best option. O’Bryant is a Preseason First Team All-SEC selection who led LSU
in points and rebounds last season, nearly averaging a double-double a game.

Junior guard Anthony Hickey, who finished last season with the third-highest steals per game average in the country, and senior
guard Andre Stringer join O’Bryant as returning starters.

“We’re much farther along at this
juncture than we were at this time last year,” Jones said. “One of the
reasons is the guys
are familiar with what we’re doing offensively and defensively and
we had enough guys coming back from last year’s team that
allowed us to be farther along in terms of things we were able to
put in and to be executing at a certain level.”

Jones helped bolster the Tigers’ roster by bringing in the No. 5 recruiting class in the country, highlighted by McDonald’s
All-American forward Jarrell Martin from Baton Rouge. Darcy Malone, a seven-footer from Australia, will add more size and
depth in the front court, and Jones said he also has the ability to step out and shoot the three.

“The veterans have done a tremendous
job of showing leadership with this team and the freshmen and newcomers
have done a great
job in terms of following that leadership and at the same time
competing at a certain level to allow us to be challenged each
day in practice.”

The Tigers had a scrimmage on Saturday,
and Jones said the most noticeable difference in the team was its
depth. LSU should
have the luxury of a flexible lineup and be able to experiment
with different player and size combinations this season, which
was not an option last year.

Jones said another side effect of the strength of the bench will be a tendency to execute the press more often and play an
up-tempo style.

Despite the expectations that come with the Tigers’ impressive signing class and the mix of veteran experience and talent,
Jones wants to keep his team focused.

“We’ve got to make sure we don’t look
ahead,” he said. “We’ve got to understand that certain areas where we
were picked very
low last year, we knew what was in front of us and how hard we had
to work and it’s a little different this year. We’ve been
picked a lot higher in some areas, but at the same time our
attitude and mentality have to be the same.”

LSU plays an exhibition game against Xavier University of Louisiana on Nov. 6 before opening the regular season in a 10 a.m.
game at UMass on Nov. 12 as part of the ESPN Tipoff Marathon.